IN Brief:
- Rohde & Schwarz has secured a $4.9bn FAA contract for digital ATC voice communications.
- CERTIUM Voice Communication Systems will be produced in Maryland and Texas for US deployment.
- Air traffic infrastructure upgrades are creating long-cycle demand for safety-critical RF, VoIP, and communications engineering.
Rohde & Schwarz has won a $4.9bn contract from the Federal Aviation Administration to replace analogue air traffic control communications infrastructure with its CERTIUM Voice Communication System across US airports and air traffic control facilities.
The digital voice systems will be produced at Rohde & Schwarz USA’s new manufacturing facility in Frederick, Maryland, and at an expanded facility in Coppell, Texas. The deployment forms part of the FAA’s Brand-New Air Traffic Control System initiative, which is modernising air traffic control infrastructure across the US National Airspace System.
CERTIUM VCS is compliant with the ED-137 standard for voice-over-IP air traffic management communications. The first system under the contract went live in September 2025 at Allegheny County Airport near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, marking the first modern VoIP voice communication system in the National Airspace System under the programme. Further deployments have been completed at locations including Beaumont, Texas; Wilmington, Delaware; Lewiston, Idaho; and Bellingham, Washington.
Frank Dunn, president and CEO of Rohde & Schwarz USA, said: “Rohde & Schwarz USA is proud to work with the FAA on this important project to modernise the air traffic control communication systems in the U.S. airspace. It’s important we use this opportunity to re-establish U.S. expertise in ATC voice communication systems.”
Dunn said the programme will create more than 200 additional skilled jobs, increasing Rohde & Schwarz USA’s workforce to more than 1,000 people. The Frederick manufacturing facility opened in early 2026 and reflects a $40m investment by Rohde & Schwarz USA to design, develop, and manufacture CERTIUM VCS domestically. The company has also expanded manufacturing and systems integration capacity in Coppell to support the FAA programme.
Air traffic control voice infrastructure sits in one of the most demanding areas of communications engineering. Systems must provide high availability, predictable latency, interoperability, resilience, and maintainability across geographically distributed facilities. Moving from analogue voice switching to standards-based IP communications shifts more of the engineering burden into network architecture, redundancy, cybersecurity, synchronisation, and failover design.
Digital ATC communication systems have to support incremental modernisation while remaining operational across live aviation environments. The communications path must stay dependable during traffic peaks, equipment faults, network disruption, maintenance windows, and staged upgrades. That creates a long service and support cycle for systems integrators, RF specialists, network engineers, and electronics suppliers working in safety-critical infrastructure.
The domestic manufacturing element also reflects a wider reassessment of strategic communications supply chains. Aviation, defence, utilities, rail, and public safety systems are increasingly judged by supportability and trusted supply as much as by initial performance. Local engineering capacity and controlled production become part of the system architecture when deployments stretch across many sites and many years.
For Rohde & Schwarz, the FAA programme expands its position in high-reliability communications, test, and measurement markets. For the wider electronics sector, the contract shows how legacy infrastructure replacement continues to generate demand for digitally managed communications platforms where software, networking, RF performance, and safety certification converge.
